


the walls kept tumbling down

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Drabble, Gen, The Hale Fire, The Hale Pack - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:53:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can hear the laughter of the hunters that watch from outside, taking too much joy in the anguish of her family, but she pushes those senses aside, focusing on the children who are oblivious as her veins turn black and their pain becomes her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the walls kept tumbling down

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote a drabble while my pizza was cooking

“Let me tell you all a story,” Talia whispers, putting on a voice of false bravado that the children are too young to see through while she pulls them all in close. She cradles the youngest in her arms, stifling his sobs against her shirt while she runs her hand through the nearest child’s hair.

Above them, she can hear the screams of her family, takes note of the exact second her husband’s human heart fails him and he falls to the floor, but she doesn’t allow herself to focus on that. Instincts scream at her to run, to save herself, because as the alpha it’s more than possible for her to. She can tear through whatever traps the hunters laid with ease; she can track them, find the ones responsible, and write tales of her revenge in their blood, but that’s not her job tonight. 

“I’m scared, Auntie,” her nephew cries and she puts her hand on the side of his face, tilting his head up so he’s forced to meet her eyes. 

“Don’t be scared,” she tells him, putting an order into her voice because she cannot let them die with the cold grip of fear on their hearts. She may not be able to get them out of this house alive, but she can give them a peaceful death. “Did I ever tell you all the story about the first pack?”

The house is hot all around her. She can hear the laughter of the hunters that watch from outside, taking too much joy in the anguish of her family, but she pushes those senses aside, focusing on the children who are oblivious as her veins turn black and their pain becomes her own.

“Long ago, there were a small group of wolves that all lived within the same woods. They did not think fondly of each other, and while they all wanted to claim the land for themselves, they were too weak alone to drive the others out,” Talia begins, wincing slightly as another heart ceases to beat somewhere above them. “One day, though, hunters came to the land. The wolves were all frightened. Each of them tried to drive the hunters out by themselves and each of them ran home with their tail between their legs, nursing wounds that refused to heal. It became clear to each of the four wolves that they could not survive if they were alone, so one night they all meet together in a clearing in the woods, and they agreed to work as a group to drive out the hunters and save their home.”

The children are all quiet, listening closely to her story, and she makes sure that her words wrap around them, preventing them from noticing how the fire is slowly edging in closer.

“They attacked the hunters on the full moon, when they were at their strongest. The hunters were not expecting the wolves to come together-”

“Did the wolves win?” 

She looks down at her daughter, doing her best to smile even as the fire bites at her flesh. The story is much longer, and she could go on telling it for hours, but she knows that they do not have the luxury of hearing the tale in its full glory, so she pulls the children closer, gritting her teeth against the pain as the flames start to bite at them, too.

“Yes,” she finally says. “They always win.” 

It’s a lie, the biggest one she’s ever told because this is just one perfect example of how her kind loses, but there is no room for the truth. Not while she can hear them all dying, and the humans outside laugh while her child’s heart stops beating even as she holds him.

You can still run, she tells herself, but she doesn’t move except to hold the ones still alive tighter, and whisper a quick prayer for her two children that she can hear lingering in the woods, hearts beating quickly in panic as the house burns.

And burns.

And burns.


End file.
